


Ribbons and Bows (The Blue Lightning Remix)

by dancesontrains



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Blood, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Mention of Earth-3 Jay Garrick, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 19:45:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11904924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancesontrains/pseuds/dancesontrains
Summary: Jesse could feel Zoom running his gloved hands through her freshly washed hair.





	Ribbons and Bows (The Blue Lightning Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [preussisch_blau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/preussisch_blau/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Ribbons and Bows](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6198334) by [preussisch_blau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/preussisch_blau/pseuds/preussisch_blau). 



> I hope you enjoy this remix!

Jesse could feel Zoom running his gloved hands through her freshly washed hair. Her face was turned away from him, but she could sense those horrible dark eyes watching her. She shivered, half in cold - her thin blouse wasn't going to help much with the chilly winds here - and half in fright. 

Her cage was dark, but she could see something glittering from the corner of her eye. There were some bows and barrettes Zoom had carefully spread out onto the dirty floor around her. 

Zoom carefully picked up a barrette, and slid it roughly into her hair just above her ear. 

" _ **Choose one,**_ " Zoom growled.

Jesse hesitated, her eyes going over the rows of little clips. _What on Earth?..._

She glanced to the side as the man in the iron mask moved a little in his sleep. 

" _ **Choose!**_ "

Was this a test? She picked up something from in front of her without looking; it turned out to be a child's clip, with a smiling purple My Little Pony on one end. 

Zoom took the clip from Jesse's hand at speed, and slid it on the opposite side of her head from the barrette he had attached before. 

Jesse remembered wearing clips just like these, carefully applied by her parents. Her mum had still been around, and liked dressing her up in little pink, sparkly clips to match pink dresses; she could remember rhinestone bows spread across her mother's dressing table as she fussed over her. 

Her father - what had he liked? A vague memory of a deep green headband came back to her. 

She missed him. She missed them both. 

Zoom then stopped asking her what she wanted, picking up clips from the display at random and shoving them into her hair, not minding the occasional shrieks of pain that Jesse couldn't hold in. 

He was nothing like her parents, who would soothe her if she called out in pain. Even if they were just combing her hair and the brush caught on a tangle, there was obvious love there. Love? Apologies? From _Zoom_ , the monster who had imprisoned her? What a weird thought. 

She shivered as little pins and larger barrettes were shoved in, Zoom's claws sometimes drawing blood. 

Jesse's heart hurt at the memory, combined with how horrible her current situation was, and she forced her mind to turn away and concentrate on a science puzzle. 

It felt like it took hours ( _think of nothing, think of nothing_ ), but it must have been just minutes as Zoom fussed at her in normal speed. 

Jesse lifted up a chained hand to touch her head, and felt the small mass of plastic, metal and cloth that had been placed there. The weight of it was bowing her head down. The blood from Zoom's work had reached her temples; she didn't dare look at her hands, but she could feel the stickiness on her fingers. 

" _ **You look pretty**_ ," Zoom informed her. Jesse wondered if he really thought so - she must look a blood-stained fright. 

Jesse, struck mute by her fear, nodded. The clips pinched at her skull and the scratches Zoom had made, making her wince.  
Jesse watched Zoom speed off, waiting a few moments until she was sure he was gone before carefully removing the clips and bows from her hair, trying to avoid the most painful parts of her head. She wouldn't keep this horrible mess on just because _he_ liked it!

There were so many of them - she must have looked ridiculous. Zoom had weird ideas about hairdressing. 

She laughed a little to herself at that last thought. 

Jesse could feel that there were still one or two hair pins left, but they were tangled in her hair and she couldn't get them out just by searching with her hands - she needed a mirror. And it wasn't like there was one in her jail cell. 

Maybe she could escape by using one of the bobby pins? Jesse picked one up off the floor - a little pink one, obviously made for a child's head - before sliding it into the lock for her chains.

The pin rattled around in the lock, but eventually slipped out of her grasp and fell on the floor, so she picked up a different one (longer, some dark color that she couldn't make out) and pushed it in. 

Jesse had never picked a lock before, but she was sure she could learn how. She had nothing but time and hair pins.

She heard the whoosh of Zoom arriving, and dropped the bobby pin. It made a noise as it tumbled down the chain - to Jesse in her fright, the noise was incredibly loud. 

" _ **Your father is being very slow,**_ " Zoom announced. " _ **And you... you are trying to escape**_..."

"N-no, it won't happen again!" Jesse said as her teeth chattered in fear. 

Was that blood glinting on his claws hers, or someone else's? She hoped to everything it was just her own. And not her dad's, no no _no_.  
Zoom phased through the bars, grabbing her by the chin so he could stare into her eyes with his black ones. 

" _ **It better not**_."

Zoom's claws pinched into her cheeks, drawing even more blood. 

There was blue lightning and all the clips had suddenly disappeared. Zoom then went through her hair to check that there were no clips left, and painfully pulled out the couple that Jesse had missed. 

Then Zoom left, so Jesse was alone in her dark cell.

Jesse's head hurt after being attacked by Zoom's claws. She knew she must look like a blood-stained mess right now. Hardly the pretty princess he seemed to want her to be. 

Even worse, all the pins had gone. Her chance to escape! She brushed down her top and skirt to make sure that none had been left in her clothes somehow; there was nothing there. 

Jesse squinted at the floor around her and saw something glinting. She bent down to look, but it was just a random crystal that had fallen off a clip or bow. 

Then she went on her hands and knees so she could feel for pins, as she could barely see anything. 

It took fifteen minutes or so of careful searching all around her cell, but she found a small child's clip, and her heart filled with hope. 

Jesse tested the middle part, but the whole thing was made of plastic. She tried placing it into the lock - it broke after a few seconds. 

"Zoom's stupid cheap hair clips," she muttered to herself before sitting down on the floor again. There was nothing more she could do. 

The man in the mask was still asleep. _Useless_ , she thought to herself. 

She tried to imagine her dad bursting through the doorway, rescuing her from wherever this was, and found it a little harder to see inside her mind than it had been a few weeks ago. 

"Dad, please hurry," she whispered to the cold air. 

Maybe, once she was free, she could shave all her hair off.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Pang/Lonelywalker for betaing, and Vass for listening to me babble. Any remaining mistakes are mine. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
